Author: Dave

March has already gone and the breeding season has started again. I have already hatched quite a number of chicks in test hatches to see how the fertility of the pens are this year. With the exception of a pen of Cochins I’m pleased enough, considering that a month ago […]

The last day of this month and I’m struggling to pen up my breeding birds for this year. I have the birds, all fit and some are in lay, but the bit I’m struggling with is how many dare I breed this season. I normally do test hatches throughout the […]

Getting towards the middle of January and it’s turned from very cold and snow to very windy and wet. The birds are looking very well with a number of them laying. I’m getting a lot of pullet eggs from the Welsh Blacks and Improved Indian Game along with French Copper […]

The weather has been awful, freezing cold and heavy snow. Nearly all the birds are in runs or in the sheds. Just trying to keep water before the birds is difficult and takes hours to go around all of them. The birds that are in lay at the moment are […]

Click to enlarge photograph. We have snow and ice and everything is much harder for the birds and myself. The birds that are ‘out’ spend most of the time in the big dutch barn during the day, just scratching around and keeping off the snow. They crossed the snow from […]

It’s 21 days into November and we have had a couple of frosty nights with more forecast for later this coming week. The earlier hatched Australorp,Welsh Blacks and Improved Indian game are now at sexual maturity and beginning to be a nuisance. They are big birds and bursting with vigour […]

October and it’s raining and the nights are drawing in. For the next 4 months it’s a case of keeping the birds as comfortable as possible. While inside the litter must be changed before it gets to the stage of being wet and soiled or the build up of disease […]

August starts at the end of this week and with it dews and condensation. I try to make sure the ventilation is correct in the grass runs to prevent water dripping onto the birds under the tarpaulin. I let all the growers out from each pen as soon as I’m […]

Very bad day today, as I have just had to cull Albert. He had a kidney infection and there is no way back for a breeding bird once you have been that ill. He was a son of my foundation cock out of a very good hen and the right […]

It’s been a hectic breeding season so far and this year I have done it all under broodies. I have never know a breeding season when so many birds went down on eggs. Even 2 of my Exchequers took broody and have given me 15 so far, moved under a […]